miércoles, 18 de abril de 2012

That´s All Folks


Three years ago i started this blog as a hobby to share many of my favourite bands and music able to make me feel and inspire different things. After megaupload debacle I´ve re up my links to another server and now mediafire locked my account and all my links are gone. 

Actually I don´t have much time to post things and re up all the links is imposible to me so I decided to quit.

Was a pleasure. Bye & see you around.

martes, 17 de abril de 2012

Eleh - Homage to the Pointed Waveforms



Genre: Drone, Electronic, Minimal

Buy 

Individually numbered edition of 500 copies on 200g virgin vinyl, packaged in custom 2-colour embossed letterpress jackets that just look amazing. Taiga Records bless the world with the first new Eleh material since their 2010 split side with Ellen Fullman. As the final release in a series dedicated to specific sound waves, it follows explorations of 'Square' and 'Sine' wave functions with three explorative compositions of triangle and sawtooth waves created on a dense modular system. They are the logical conclusion of live research performed in Barcelona, Brussels and Madrid during spring 2011. Side A contains a version of the piece that was conceived for the shows, which evolved during the three performances as it was continually reworked. It can be delineated into three distinct sections, each with more emphasis on (relatively) dynamic rhythm and noise than we're used to hearing from Eleh records. The B-side features two tracks mixed with "travel memories" and reflecting on that arrangement. The first is more reduced, yet prickly, and with sublime, almost melodic tone sequences to close. The third and final piece is a head-swallowing drone of near-cinematic potential, with a conclusion that's more than worth your patience. It should be noted that any perceptible distortion on the the 1st track of side B is "a problem of the audio itself, its structure and specific combination of frequencies", and can be taken as "a collaboration between Eleh and an unknown phenomenon". Don't sleep...

sábado, 14 de abril de 2012

En - Already Gone


Link removed by request

Genre: Ambient, Drone, Electronic



A universal definition of what is “beautiful” will probably remain eternally elusive. Different tastes, different cultures, backgrounds and a myriad of other factors play into how one person’s perception of beauty differs from the next. That said, it would be difficult to imagine anyone listening to the opening minutes of En’s sophomore effort, bask in the swelling layers of sound and not feel totally surrounded by the sublime, the utterly beautiful.

Processed fields of digital ambience wash down upon the listener, guided thoughtfully by the clear bass notes of The Drift’s Trevor Montgomery, notes appear and sounds reveal themselves from underneath the veils of opener “Lodi”, which at two minutes long is a fraction of what most ambient/experimental artists put out, yet equally effective. The presence of bass guitar remains in the following track, and the fact that its inclusion works so well makes one wonder, why aren’t more artists who dwell in the limitless fields of ambience using bass in their mix? Its effect is enamoring, like a constant link between the heavens and earth, making the pristine worlds created by the reverb laden soundscapes appear more tangible. They turn from places that exist solely in dreams and fantasies to ones where you can actually reside and immerse yourself within. The bass notes, however scarce they might be, add that effect perfectly. It is extremely simple yet absolutely brilliant. I want more bass in my ambient from now on!

The rest of the album doesn’t stray far from the opening tracks in terms of quality or mood. “Already Gone” keeps going strong and the duo of Maxwell August Croy and James Devane continuously show that there is more to drone or ambient music than tons of reverb. They are able to mix things up, but do so ever so subtly, the koto plucks which bring to mind Nest’s best work, the jagged drones laid down to utmost effect amidst other layers in a manner that would make Richard Skelton proud. It’s all so thoughtfully done and keeps the listener completely locked in throughout the album’s length.

Thoughtful instrumentation and an eye for all that’s pretty won’t cut it though, I mean sure it’s gorgeous, but there’s more than the fair share of ambient musicians out there treading along these same lines. What cuts it, what seals the deal, hits a home run, touches down and does a triple backward somersault, is an ear for melody. What has always differentiated the everyday sound artist from those who excel at it, in my humble opinion at least, is melody. This might sound old fashioned, but nothing warms my heart more, especially one that has all these beautifying elements in the background, and that is exactly what makes album closer, “Elysia”, work so wonderfully.

At a little over nineteen minutes, longer than the four previous tracks combined, “Elysia” is naturally the one track which ultimately makes or breaks the album. It is the moment where the listener is faced with a more concrete, longer lasting thought rather than snippets of emotion and it shows En’s abilities at their highest; Here we have an emotional mass that provides an alluring gravitational pull, the introduction of piano, followed by psychedelic arps and synths make way for a vast field of quietude ending with sparse toy piano notes that fall away quietly into nothingness. We’ve reached the end and get a bigger picture of the effort the artists have put into constructing the compositions, it’s a trip through the details rather than a postcard of the overall result. En take us through the express route in the first half of the album and then back via the scenic route and both work marvelously.

Whether or not “Already Gone” would remain in my personal rotation for many months to come is something that I can’t tell for sure at the moment, but what I am sure of is that for the time I spent with it, I loved it deeply and if I am to take a souvenir with me it would have to be second track “The Sea Saw Swell”. That Bass!!!

Review from Fluid Radio

domingo, 8 de abril de 2012

Ingenting Kollektiva - Fragments Of Night



Genre: Dark Ambient, Drone, Experimental



Ingenting Kollektiva is comprised of Diane Granahan, Kirston Lightowler, Tarrl Lightowler, and Matthew Swiezynski, and is an homage to the films of Ingmar Bergman and Sven Nykvist. The Kollektiva recordings are meditations on the quality of light, sound, and atmosphere, as well as realizations of the various forms of 'nothingness' captured by these two masters. Christmas of 2009, the Kollektiva found themselves surrounded with many recordings from the year 1969, including: Miles Davis & Teo Macero's In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, John Surman's Way Back When and How Many Clouds Can You See?, and Extrapolation (with John McLauglin), Bert Jansch's Birthday Blues, Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day (recorded December 1969), Fairport Convention's Unhalfbricking, Jan Garbarek & Terje Rypdal's Esoteric Circle, King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King, Scott Walker's Scott Walker 4, Holger Czukay's Canaxis, plus many more. With this in mind, they recorded some songs in the Lightowlers' barn during a rainstorm, and later added recordings from Northern California and Los Angeles. The editing process then became something similar to Macero's work for Miles Davis. The recording has been issued as a long-play record with a gatefold sleeve and photographs by Tarrl Lightowler. Thanks so much to Taylor Deupree for bringing many layers & hidden sounds to life in these recordings.

miércoles, 4 de abril de 2012

Black Swan - Aeterna


Link removed

Genre: Dark Ambient, Drone
Label: Swan Plague



The first release was lovely and short, a primer in many ways. The follow-up was noisier, still relatively brief and melodic, but impeccable in theme. And now Aeterna, Black Swan’s third full album, is nothing short of an abyss. Exhausting, bombastic, unmapped, and, yes, as black as pitch. 

Most listeners will find it difficult to get past a composition so dominated by noise. Even those of us accustomed to it may be left cold by the borrowed pulse (some musicians refer to the accidental percussion born out of trimming and repeating samples as “events,” which is a good way to put it). This way press is fairly hard to come by, but those reviewers who have taken the plunge are well-rewarded. All of this is to say that, paradoxically, the entire Black Swan discography receives universal praise. In a 10-out-of-10 appraisal of the debut LP In 8 Movements, Foxy Digitalis reports, “the Swan isn’t afraid to make real musical decisions.” The Silent Ballet review, concluded, “neither positive or negative, and unequivocally gorgeous.” Message boards and comment threads indicate nothing short of delight for the EUS remix and the one-track collaboration with 36. But it was The Quiet Divide that marked the first of now two masterpieces: a symmetrical narrative, an intellectual trek, and a true thing of beauty. Instead of a Rorschach-in-Technicolor, this cover art was a road map, marking the path as euphony gave way to dissolution, and then to static, the quiet divide. The story pressed on through recovery, and back to euphony again. The final measures repeated the first. Nothing was changed, save for the passing of time, and some exceptional music. Futility and beauty.

(And for any listeners who believed eight minutes was too much time to dedicate to white noise, look at the album cover again. We submit that the noise was in fact red in color, and a plot twist. Both are key distinctions.)

For Aeterna, Black Swan has abandoned narrative for aphorism, and chaos for uncertainty. This is clearly the work of the same artist. The slow and vaporous sound for which he is known is still the order, manipulations of operatic and orchestral sources as well as the currents of noise all pigment the synthesizer tissue and hidden guitar, as before. As always, the touches of sadness, madness, and the interplay between the two. The occasional flash of Eno’s celestial-event thumbprint and incalculable time signatures. The compositions are allowed to sing, literally and otherwise, and the pinpoints of light are not disorienting, even if they are trying to be. The finest example of this is “Dying God (Suite),” which concludes the album with a moving five-minute space opera, sampling some old choral work stretched to anonymity and filtered almost down to its proteins.

But as is common with the ever-patient Black Swan, we’re getting ahead of him.

Aeterna begins with “A Lesson In Slow Flight,” named online by a fan of the artist and seamlessly blended into the ethics and aesthetics of the album, just like all of the composer’s other sources. The humming construction and neutered samples – thunder? old sci-fi films? a body shop? – might not turn any heads, but the slow-burning optimism is a notable departure. “Lamentine” is a short and disturbing piece, looping a 3AM piano lick and a swish of static across an otherwise bare canvas. It’s an interesting neologism, the joining of lament and Clementine. Merciful regret, maybe?
Review from Fluid Radio